'A Model The President Should Follow' by Chuck Norris

After President Barack Obama repeatedly and emphatically promised last summer that Obamacare would not use federal funds to pay for abortions (and even signed a supportive presidential order, to boot), last week it was revealed that federal funds are being funneled to provide for abortive services in Pennsylvania and New Mexico.

This presidential lie is tragically just one more in an unprecedented string of flat-out falsehoods, reaching back to Obama's campaign promise to "clean up both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue" with "the most sweeping ethics reform in history." He repeatedly declared then that "an Obama administration is going to have the toughest ethics laws of any administration in history."

Really?


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The question that keeps coming to mind is: What about the kids across the nation who have so uniquely looked up to this relatively youthful president? What are they learning from him? Does President Obama naively believe that they never will overhear their parents discussing his array of presidential lies?

What happened to the days when presidents -- and even sports stars -- were role models?



Maybe it's time even our presidents looked up to some new examples of decency and integrity.

I've got just such a person in mind, and he always will be one of my models and heroes, despite the fact that he died just last Wednesday -- 12-year-old Cody Ty Humphries.

Cody was one of several Make-A-Wish Foundation kids who visited my Texas ranch in the same month that Obama was elected, November 2008. Though all the children were certainly special and a great blessing to my wife, Gena, and me, Cody stole my heart.

Cody was born March 13, 1998. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, which eventually crippled nearly every part of his little body and spawned a series of progressive deteriorations that ultimately would lead to his death.

All of the precious children visiting my house that day had a wish to meet me, for which I'm humbly honored. I found out later that Cody waited 2 1/2 years to meet me. The Make-A-Wish Foundation asked him for a second wish, just in case they couldn't fulfill the first, but he replied, "I don't have a second choice. You need to ask him. I have to meet him because I am running out of time."

Cody was so proud that his birthday was only three days after mine. Like the other kids, Cody pet our ranch animals and even rode my horse, though it was painful for him to do so.

I was so impressed by Cody that I asked him whether he wanted to see my Western collection. He was particularly thrilled to see the Uzi that I used in my "Missing in Action" movies. I gave him a western belt that I received from President Ronald Reagan. And I also gave him one of my authentic Texas Ranger badges.

Cody's stare was piercing, and his eyes sparkled with his love for life and others. What he was incapable of doing with his body he made up for in his heart and mind. He was an amazingly mature, compassionate and bright young man for his age, no doubt in part from enduring what he had for his decade on this planet. Yet he maintained his childlike innocence and was honest to the core. He saw the good in everyone, and nothing got him down, not even his MD. Even as his condition declined, he adapted and always maintained his optimism. He once said that "love and friendship are something that you can take with you for all time."

As Cody left that November day, Gena and I gave him a big hug. But he wanted to give me one of his "pat-hugs." Because he was incapable of putting his arms around people, his mother lifted his arms around me, and with his palms resting on my back, he moved his fingers slowly up and down as much as he could to extend his love to me. (I was told he rarely gave pat-hugs.)

A year ago last June, I was speaking with him on the phone, and we expressed our love for each other. Then I told him that when we both got home to heaven, he would be my first martial arts student there!

This past week, Cody's mother, Deedee, described a dream he had just before he passed on.

The Sunday before last, Cody's mom held him on the couch as he slept. He later told her that as he was sleeping, he also was standing with his grandpa Gary (who died five years ago), both dressed in white and watching his mom hold him on the couch. Cody told his grandpa that he wasn't ready to go and that he needed a few more days. Later Cody told his mother, "I just want you to know that I love you and that the next time Grandpa visits me, I'm going to go with him."

Late the next day, Cody said he wanted to hug his mom, so she placed his arms around her. He held her for about 10 minutes and then whispered, "Mom, I'm going to pass away. I love you, and I'll see you again when it's your time to come home."

At 5:15 a.m. the next day, Cody departed his earthly body and went to his heavenly home.

Now you see why Cody stole my heart -- and why I think we all should emulate those young brave souls like him. Of course, Cody is not alone. There are many small heroes all around us -- maybe even in your home or community.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14).

He also said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).

Maybe it's time to quit asking the kids to learn from us and it's time we learned from them.

Maybe we should be more concerned with growing down than with growing up.

Maybe even the president would be a better man and leader if he did.

Maybe we all would.

Senate Committee Approves Kagan

Obama commends the Senate Judiciary Committee's decision a "bipartisan affirmation of [Kagan's] strong performance [in confirmation hearings]."

Obama has stated several times that he trusts Kagan is well deserving of a Supreme Court Supreme seat, despite ever being a judge at all.

The Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 in Kagan's favor, sending the final accord into the hands of the full Senate body. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was the one and only senator to back Kagan. Hmm . . . is that really bipartisanship Mr. Obama?

Best Opinion: Town Hall.com

BP Photoshops Photo of Crisis Command Center

After much confrontation, BP has now apologized and replaced the photoshopped image with what they claim to be an "original" (It's funny, though, that they refuse to post a high-resolution photograph.) Though these fallacies may not deem convincing to some, anyone who has an ounce of experience in Photoshop should laugh at this.

Some Advice for BP's 'Photoshopper':

The next time you cut someone out and place them in another photo, do not use the straight-line lasso tool. You get the effect of a one-deminsional cardboard cut-out, as seen in the top photo.

Also, there is such thing as a 'skew' option. The bottom photo could have used it.

Photos courtesy of: AMERICAblog News

Judge a Presidency By Its Crises Avoided

Time: I don't think I'd want to visit, much less live in, the parallel universe that hosts a President. That's the universe where if he makes the wrong call on fiscal policy, a million more people lose their jobs, or the wrong judgment about an enemy, and thousands lose their lives. Presidents rise or fall according to how they handle a crisis — an invasion, a depression, a massive oil spill — but they seldom get credit for the crisis they prevent, especially since they can't prove it would have happened in the first place. As Barack Obama weighs his options in Afghanistan or where and how hard to shock the economy in hopes of finding a pulse, as he watches poll numbers slip and confidence slide and 7 in 10 people say his economic rescue attempt has made no difference, there's a shadow President over in the alternative reality who is wondering, Just where would we be now had I not administered CPR when I walked in the door?

Scratch a President's skin and you'll find someone who is nearly as proud of what doesn't happen as what does. Sometimes the biggest part of the job is foreseeing and forestalling, or keeping bad things from being worse; not much in the way of credit for that, but a lot of time spent and sleep lost. When the weight of office is finally off their shoulders, this is often what former Presidents remember. Though eternally popular personally, Eisenhower endured the condescension of some in even his party who dismissed him as the custodial President of a sedated country. He knew otherwise: knew how many times in the course of his two terms his advisers urged him to dispatch the Marines, whether to Vietnam, Suez, Hungary, Quemoy and Matsu — advice he resolutely resisted in his hunt for a better way. "The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my Administration," he argued in retirement. "We kept the peace. People asked how it happened. By God, it didn't just happen, I'll tell you that." (See pictures of Obama's first year in the White House.)

In a President's parallel universe, even normal calculations collapse under pressure. Risk is supposed to equal probability times consequences. Do I dare leave home without an umbrella? There's a less than even chance it will rain, the umbrella is heavy, it doesn't really matter if I end up getting wet, so I leave it at home. But now imagine you are in the White House, weighing the risk of confronting your enemy over Cuba or Vietnam, wondering if that would unleash a nuclear holocaust that would mean the end of civilization as we know it. Now the math goes out the window: no risk could be worth an infinitely bad outcome. But Presidents can't think that way, or they would be held hostage by fear. So they have to pick their way toward solutions, commuting back and forth to the alternative reality where they glimpse what could happen if things don't go as planned. (Comment on this story.)

Thus did Lyndon Johnson, retired to his ranch in Texas, brush back his aide and later biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin when she suggested there might have been some other road to peace in Southeast Asia. "I will not let you take me backward in time in Vietnam," he growled. "Fifty thousand American boys are dead. Nothing we can say will change that fact. Your idea that I could have chosen otherwise rests upon complete ignorance. For if I had chosen otherwise, I would have been responsible for starting World War III." He knew the price he was paying, personally and politically, including the cost to the Great Society vision he cherished. "Do you know what it's like to feel responsible for the deaths of men you love? Well, all that horror was acceptable if it prevented the far worse horror of World War III. For that would have meant the end of everything we know." (See if Obama's immigration push is hurting Democrats.)

Every President lives with his own version of this. Gerald Ford's aides sat mute as he explained his plan to pardon Richard Nixon and spare the country prolonged agony. "The President's logic was unassailable," one adviser recalled, "yet I felt as if I was watching someone commit hara-kiri." George W. Bush lives with the legacy of Abu Ghraib and waterboarding and the costs of making "hard calls" but left office able to say, we were not successfully attacked a second time on my watch, and who in the fall of 2001 would have predicted that?

This may be one reason Bush has said many times that President Obama "deserves my silence." Every President will have his critics, but in the modern age, they seldom include his predecessors. All Presidents are fellow travelers in the parallel universe, where the terrain of regret looks very different and where there is hardly ever such thing as a perfect outcome.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2004108,00.html#ixzz0uBhockvs

Judge a Presidency By Its Crises Avoided
Time Magazine

Lighting strike up close

Excuse the language, please.

Palin Tweets

Palin excited the twittersphere yesterday by posting two controversial tweets, saying:

SarahPalinUSA

To add to this excitement, critics hounded Palin for first using the word 'refudiate' in place of refute, resulting in Palin deleting the post. As you may know, 'refudiate' is not an english word. If you were to now Google the word, here is what you would find:

I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe it's safe to say the critics are obsessed.

Sons of Liberty Academy...?

Join or Die

THE HOMEPAGE COULD BE A BIT MORE 'WELCOMING'.

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USING WIKIPEDIA AS A RESOURCE, REALLY?
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SPELL CHECK, EH?

Could this perhaps be a copy of Beck University by chance?

Neo-Nazis to Secure Border?

Best Opinion: NY Daily News

While a small minority of Neo-Nazis draw any public attention whatsoever, Jason "J.T." Ready and his militia, who claim ties to the National Socialist Movement, are an exception. J.T. and other reputed neo-nazis are taking it upon themselves to 'properly' secure the U.S./Mexico border.

This of course comes with the stirring controversy over Arizona's controversial illegal immigration law.

With a semiautomatic rifle in hand, J.T. told The Associated Press, "We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore. This is what our founding fathers did."

I suppose this is the inevitable result of a lack of government action on an ever important issue. Personally, I am not a fan of vigilantism, nor the socialist party for that matter. However, if this group of border enforcers are going about this for the right and just reasons, I'm all for it, because if the government fails to step in, the people must.